Sunday, January 18, 2009

Review on Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 700

About one week ago, I bought this Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 700 for RM90 at PC Depot... suprisingly, PC Depot is selling items at lowyat prices... haha... anyway, after a week using it you all might wanna know what do i think about it right??? I dont care if you dont care enough for that... I'll just keep on writing... hahaha...



Here it is... The first key features I was looking at is wireless/cordless... this feature is very important to me to reduce entangled wires/cables around my laptop. and this is very helpful... however, when it comes to wireless there will always certain performance issue like how far they can go and how fast the signal travels... will there be any certain latency or lag???

first of all, about how far the signal can go... suprisingly, this desktop set is totallly unlike other wireless device i have ever seen... even sensonic's wireless mouse is not up to par with this desktop set. I have tried to pull this keyboard and mouse together more than one meter from the receiver and the keyboard and mouse still get their job nicely done. Unlike other wireless device that priced almost RM50... they dont go too far in the signal... just enough for you to go around your laptop. I would say, this is good as I can be anywhere I like in my room without having to worry about losing control over my laptop.

then, how fast the signal travels... as far as i'm concern... extreme gaming needs for speed... lower latency device is good.... which, for gamers who play games up to international level, most wireless device is not good... thus, requiring them to opt for cabled keyboard (yeah, that's what Razer is doing) and mouse... however, suprisingly enough the mouse unit is moving faster and more sensitive than my A4 Laser Mouse... and the sensor can actually sense the movement even if the mouse is slightly airborne... not even my A4 Laser Mouse can do... so far, i've tried almost all surface including glossy surface, none of them cause the mouse failed to operate... I still have yet to try transparent glass and jubin though... most optical mouse failed to operate on these surface except my laser mouse... ooppsss... going to far away from topic... back to the speed of signal travel... the mouse and keyboard doesn't give big latency while I played Call Of Duty 2.... so, this desktop set is as good as wired ... games are playable, however for extreme gaming, for those who might have been used to Razer Lycosa or other gaming keyboard, dont get this one... latency will be your big issue...

Hotkeys... this keyboard have internet and multimedia hotkeys as well as calculator and my computer hotkeys... all my life, i've been using keyboard shortcuts very much since i used a laptop... the fact that i have to face when i bought a Compaq is that they dont have My Computer hotkeys while my old laptop, Hyundai M-Life got one... it is much easier to the access to My Computer that way rather than clicking Start Menu>My Computer... However, this keyboard have done it's favour to me... multimedia keys provided are play/pause, volume control, volume mute, and media player button... I would find that if there are next/previous button, it will be more usefull as i used them a lot... now, i have to click it at my windows media player instead of hitting a button on my keyboard even WMP is not an active window. as for internet hotkeys, we have email, home/web browser and favourite hotkeys... i dont use these as much... as I dont access email client that often on my laptop and also, i found that my web browser is running almost all the time...

other than that, they are pretty much like a normal keyboard and mouse, except they are wireless... and you are free to make it as bolster if you want... hahahaha....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have the same keyboard and mouse and unfortunatly they are both crap!!! they use battery power up so fast that after a day they both lag out so bad i just want to smash them. and playing call of duty with them i find impossible. overall view of these products is CRAP!!!! took me 30 min to write this comment cause of lag from Keyboard!!!!

master_red_lion said...

i think what you should do is to send ur units for repair... as of today, after almost one year of using it, mine still works fine...

you should pay ur attention to the receiver placement... as i find out, the unit shouldn't be below the receiver. the receiver might fail to receive any signal from the units if the receiver is located above the keyboard and mouse.

however, i have to agree about the power consumption. the mouse unit consume too much battery... my friend's got a more advanced unit, his mouse can hold on more than 3 months while mine only one month... quite sad...

as for the keyboard, i think the power consumption is ok... never changed the battery since bought it....